The link lists all the other words and phrases you can't use in NY schools. I think this is ABSURD! Can't use dancing b/c some people don't believe in it (yet ballet is ok). Can't use "homes with swimming pools" because it shows different degrees of wealth. I hope a ton of parents and students speak up about this. So what are other peoples thoughts on this?

well given how kids in school are i don't think it matters... not like any of them will listen or follow those rules regardless... in fact it will probably just entice them to say said words and phrases more often...

hmmm maybe they should make speaking properly with no slang and being nice to fellow students against the rules... kid's might start doing it

also that article doesn't say those words can not be said in schools... just that they gave a list with those words on it to companies competing to rewrite one of their tests and said not to use them

Actually, there's a very good reason for this: on standardized tests, there are a lot of questions that assume a certain baseline cultural knowledge. The problem is, that baseline often has things that a significant portion of students can't be expected to know much about -- for example, kids in the midwest (read: hundreds of miles from the ocean) being expected to know cultural details about seaside piers. The article you linked was complaining about New York schools attempting to remove that bias from standardized tests that determine both student and teacher futures, a truly baffling reason to complain.

Good LORD! America you believe in separation of church and state! don't you? I could have sworn you did.

Dinosaurs were thrown out, for example, as they call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists. Birthdays shouldn't be mentioned because they aren't celebrated by Jehovah's Witnesses.

The rest of the words are banned more for political correctness

Halloween appeared on the "black list" as it suggests paganism."Dancing'' is taboo, because some sects object. However the city took pity on ballet which is an exception. Terrorism was considered too scary. Poverty is on the forbidden list as well as words that suggest wealth because they could make kids jealous. Divorces, as well as diseases are also set to be forbidden in order to not traumatize kids having relatives who split from spouses or are ill.

terrorism is too scary huh? Well it's ok, you don't need to teach kids about history anyway. how does this make sense? NYC was attacked by terrorists, Terrorism is pretty much the only aspect of history kids today actually remember.

You can't talk about diseases either? isn't education an extremely important part of helping people not get diseases?

Officials say they are simply trying to avoid topics that "could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students."

And the American Education system continues to be bad. What the hell are they actually going to teach in school? Maybe they should ban Math next because it makes 'some kids feel stupid'. How about instead of teaching kids things, we just tell them what a great job they are doing and how super awesome they are and how great they should feel about themselves.

evilneko:Even in your own heavily-biased source, it says the words are banned on city-issued tests. In no way does this affect the speech of students or teachers in the classroom.

I disagree, While it's true these words are only banned on tests there is a very good chance these topics won't be brought up in the classroom either. They whole thing basically says "don't bring up anything that makes the kid's uncomfortable" which (as you can see) includes just about everything.

It's similar to when teachers were told they weren't allowed to discuss being gay in a positive light, many teachers didn't bring it up at all (in fear of getting in trouble) and even when asked questions about being gay a lot of teachers chose to ignore the whole issue.

This is what I fear it will turn into, once it's deemed that talking about 'terrorism, poverty, computers, Halloween' is inappropriate on a test, how far is the logical jump they these things shouldn't be discussed in the classroom either?

evilneko:Even in your own heavily-biased source, it says the words are banned on city-issued tests. In no way does this affect the speech of students or teachers in the classroom.

I'm guessing you watch Fox Noise a lot to pick up this level of distortion in "reporting."

Idk what news it was I kinda walked in on it from another room. My issue is that these words and phrases have been on tests for years and no one has come out saying "i feel traumatized because I read the word divorce on a test". This is a ridiculous kind of sheltering.

To add to the topic further, political correctness in general is frusturating. Are people honestly that easily offended?

Any test I took with a word problem (two dinosaurs are running at each other, there are 15 houses with swimming pools...) would always wake me up a little when I would take a test. It's easy to zone out when all you're staring at is numbers on a page, spice up the tests a bit and maybe kids wouldn't hate taking them as much.

To add to the topic further, political correctness in general is frusturating. Are people honestly that easily offended?

Any test I took with a word problem (two dinosaurs are running at each other, there are 15 houses with swimming pools...) would always wake me up a little when I would take a test. It's easy to zone out when all you're staring at is numbers on a page, spice up the tests a bit and maybe kids wouldn't hate taking them as much.

it's a definite step backwards

If the rules are for what I think they are, it's more like no reading comprehension questions where the student has to figure out what might logically happen at a house with a swimming pool using their own knowledge (for example, the book might not mention that the pool was chlorinated, but it would mention that the eyes of the person swimming were burning, and ask what the most likely reason for this would be.) Richer kids would know the answer; poor inner city kids may have never seen a house with a swimming pool, let alone experienced burning eyes from chlorine. It's about removing cultural and socioeconomic bias from standardized tests, not about political correctness.

Source: I'm an ed major. We spend a lot of time talking about exactly this problem.

evilneko:Even in your own heavily-biased source, it says the words are banned on city-issued tests. In no way does this affect the speech of students or teachers in the classroom.

I'm guessing you watch Fox Noise a lot to pick up this level of distortion in "reporting."

Idk what news it was I kinda walked in on it from another room. My issue is that these words and phrases have been on tests for years and no one has come out saying "i feel traumatized because I read the word divorce on a test". This is a ridiculous kind of sheltering.

evilneko:Even in your own heavily-biased source, it says the words are banned on city-issued tests. In no way does this affect the speech of students or teachers in the classroom.

I'm guessing you watch Fox Noise a lot to pick up this level of distortion in "reporting."

Idk what news it was I kinda walked in on it from another room. My issue is that these words and phrases have been on tests for years and no one has come out saying "i feel traumatized because I read the word divorce on a test". This is a ridiculous kind of sheltering.

This is dumb.So very very dumb.So we can't say Halloween because it's related to Paganism? Let's ban Christmas! I'm not Christian, so I find it offensive!Dinosaurs? You mean HELLOSAURS! Don't mention anything that could contradict my beliefs!*Sigh*Thank Odin I live in England.

See my post above. The New York Post may have reported on it first, but you notice that the other sources I linked didn't go into as much detail on the reasoning, and certainly didn't make claims about "calling evolution to mind." If you didn't catch it, Newscorp also owns Fox News and the Daily Mail; making up details for sensationalism is kind of their thing.

To add to the topic further, political correctness in general is frusturating. Are people honestly that easily offended?

Any test I took with a word problem (two dinosaurs are running at each other, there are 15 houses with swimming pools...) would always wake me up a little when I would take a test. It's easy to zone out when all you're staring at is numbers on a page, spice up the tests a bit and maybe kids wouldn't hate taking them as much.

it's a definite step backwards

If the rules are for what I think they are, it's more like no reading comprehension questions where the student has to figure out what might logically happen at a house with a swimming pool using their own knowledge (for example, the book might not mention that the pool was chlorinated, but it would mention that the eyes of the person swimming were burning, and ask what the most likely reason for this would be.) Richer kids would know the answer; poor inner city kids may have never seen a house with a swimming pool, let alone experienced burning eyes from chlorine. It's about removing cultural and socioeconomic bias from standardized tests, not about political correctness.

Source: I'm an ed major. We spend a lot of time talking about exactly this problem.

I'm asking this question in all seriousness, but isn't chlorine in a pool something you learn about regardless if you've never been swimming? It just seems like it would fall under the category of things you just learn/parents tell you even if you don't experience it yourself. I've never lived in the inner-city but I know they have public pools there.

A lot of questions I remember from when I took SAT's and such were based on common sense. I can't remember anyone in the private schools I went to having issues with not knowing things like that. (but I only had one year in public school so maybe the teaching method is waaaay different?)

To add to the topic further, political correctness in general is frusturating. Are people honestly that easily offended?

Any test I took with a word problem (two dinosaurs are running at each other, there are 15 houses with swimming pools...) would always wake me up a little when I would take a test. It's easy to zone out when all you're staring at is numbers on a page, spice up the tests a bit and maybe kids wouldn't hate taking them as much.

it's a definite step backwards

If the rules are for what I think they are, it's more like no reading comprehension questions where the student has to figure out what might logically happen at a house with a swimming pool using their own knowledge (for example, the book might not mention that the pool was chlorinated, but it would mention that the eyes of the person swimming were burning, and ask what the most likely reason for this would be.) Richer kids would know the answer; poor inner city kids may have never seen a house with a swimming pool, let alone experienced burning eyes from chlorine. It's about removing cultural and socioeconomic bias from standardized tests, not about political correctness.

Source: I'm an ed major. We spend a lot of time talking about exactly this problem.

I'm asking this question in all seriousness, but isn't chlorine in a pool something you learn about regardless if you've never been swimming? It just seems like it would fall under the category of things you just learn/parents tell you even if you don't experience it yourself. I've never lived in the inner-city but I know they have public pools there.

A lot of questions I remember from when I took SAT's and such were based on common sense. I can't remember anyone in the private schools I went to having issues with not knowing things like that. (but I only had one year in public school so maybe the teaching method is waaaay different?)

You might learn about chlorine, but it's not exactly on any curriculum, nor is it on the curriculum that it burns your eyes when they're exposed to it. Besides, that was just a example; there's tons of situations like this. The thing about common sense is that it's only common to a given group of people, because it's based on their common experiences. America is a big enough place that what is common sense to some people is completely outside the experience of others; accounting for that is a huge problem in standardized tests, especially in reading comprehension and IQ tests, both of which require a lot of assumed background knowledge from the student, background knowledge that they're supposed to have picked up from life, not school.

P.S.: if you went to a private school, your family probably had enough money that you're not in the demographic that these tests are biased against; if anything, you'd be in the demographic that they're biased in favor of.

Anyone here played Dino Crisis? I heard the first couple of games were pretty good. I've been meaning to try them out but I've been too busy dancing with my friends. Half of them seem have freakin' homes with swimming pools it's crazy!

Since it's a CBS affiliate, at least we know it's not beholden to Emperor Palpatine Rupert Murdoch. Although it may be left-leaning. :p

"Rap Music""Rock and Roll Music"

That's way too specific. Why not just ban music in general because people might have different taste?

Part of it is because the topics in question have been done to death, to the point that the students get bored having to read yet another passage on the topic and then answer questions. If I had to guess on the real reason dancing, rock and roll, rap, and dinosaurs were off the list of topics, that would be my guess as to why.

Maybe they should focus on banning all the shit words kids are using nowadays... you know, the ones linked with low standards of education, and gangs. If I hear another delinquent using 'innit', or 'bruv' or any word out of it's proper meaning like 'blood' and 'safe' I will wring knecks... There slang, and there is speaking like a complete arsehole, and so damn aggressively...! :/

Cheap sensation again? I read a bit of the article saw how badly it tried to get readers and left it.

As Cracked said in 4 Recurring Myths We Apparently Really Want to Believe "#2. Political Correctness Gone Wrong". It's a cheap trick to whip the readers into frenzy "They BAN WORDS dammit!". I'm glad to see it works - you get angry and suddenly everything you believe must be the absolute truth.

If the rules are for what I think they are, it's more like no reading comprehension questions where the student has to figure out what might logically happen at a house with a swimming pool using their own knowledge (for example, the book might not mention that the pool was chlorinated, but it would mention that the eyes of the person swimming were burning, and ask what the most likely reason for this would be.) Richer kids would know the answer; poor inner city kids may have never seen a house with a swimming pool, let alone experienced burning eyes from chlorine. It's about removing cultural and socioeconomic bias from standardized tests, not about political correctness.

Source: I'm an ed major. We spend a lot of time talking about exactly this problem.

fair enough, I don't remember doing any 'common sense' questions when I took my tests but I'm from Canada so our test could be widely different. I assumed your standardized tests would only cover knowledge gained from school, I suppose the questions could be used to determine if a student is applying appropriate 'logic' to a situation.

But that still doesn't explain why dinosaurs (creationism) and Halloween (Paganism) were removed.

If the rules are for what I think they are, it's more like no reading comprehension questions where the student has to figure out what might logically happen at a house with a swimming pool using their own knowledge (for example, the book might not mention that the pool was chlorinated, but it would mention that the eyes of the person swimming were burning, and ask what the most likely reason for this would be.) Richer kids would know the answer; poor inner city kids may have never seen a house with a swimming pool, let alone experienced burning eyes from chlorine. It's about removing cultural and socioeconomic bias from standardized tests, not about political correctness.

Source: I'm an ed major. We spend a lot of time talking about exactly this problem.

fair enough, I don't remember doing any 'common sense' questions when I took my tests but I'm from Canada so our test could be widely different. I assumed your standardized tests would only cover knowledge gained from school, I suppose the questions could be used to determine if a student is applying appropriate 'logic' to a situation.

But that still doesn't explain why dinosaurs (creationism) and Halloween (Paganism) were removed.

Did your reading comprehension questions have any "what is most likely to happen next?" or "what is the most likely reason this happened?" questions? Because if so, you had common sense based questions. There's so many things that good readers do subconsciously that it's hard to imagine stuff like this being a problem until it's been pointed out to you, but it's true; reading is a process, and as easy as some people make it look, it's not simple.

captcha: easy as cake.

It's like the irony bot 9000 is making these things.

Edit: Oh, and as for dinosaurs and Halloween, that was the Washington Post's assumption as to the reason. A more likely reason is that the subjects have both been done to death; one of the articles I linked said that some things were being taken off of the list of potential topics and questions because so many parts of prior tests had been about them that the students were getting bored and irritated.